for him![A]

[Footnote A: In 1857, when the Medici graves at San Lorenzo were opened,
the bodies of the Grand Duke Francesco and the Grand Duchess Giovanna
were easily identified. The bodies also of Maria, the unhappy victim of
her father, Cosimo, with the fatal wound; of Eleanora de Garzia de
Toledo, Piero's murdered wife; and of Isabella, Duchess of Bracciano,
were also recognised. All five were in wooden chests, but robbed of the
costly grave-clothes and jewels. _There was no trace of the body of the
Grand Duchess Bianca!_]

Bianca had not been many days buried when ominous reports began to be
rife all over Florence and along the countryside. People asked each
other why the body of the Grand Duchess had been snatched. "Was it,"
they said, "to hide the real culprit and to stifle awkward questions?"
The tongues of the night-birds, who had thrown that precious body aside
contemptuously, and had not been permitted to mark the grave in any way,
were loosened, they gave the name of their employer--Ferdinando's
major-domo.

That was quite enough to fix preferentially the guilt upon the guilty
party, but when the medical advisers of the new Grand Duke admitted
reluctantly that neither Francesco nor Bianca had died from malarial
causes, the chitter-chatter of the villa and the palace became
unmuzzled, and first one and then another domestic--more or less
personal--contributed his piece of private knowledge of the facts of the
double tragedy.

Putting these all together piecemeal, the story reads somewhat as
follows: Cardinal Ferdinando had for a very long time determined that it
was absolutely essential to his succession to the Grand Duchy that Don
Francesco should not be permitted to have a child--a boy, by his second
wife, Bianca.

Francesco's health was indifferent and he seemed likely not to live
long, but, be that as it might, the Cardinal joined the hunting-party at
Poggia a Caiano fully intent upon making an attempt upon the lives of
both Francesco and Bianca. Among his suite was a valet, one Silvio, a
man of fiendish ingenuity, who had made himself invaluable to his master
in many an intrigue. To him Ferdinando committed the task of mixing the
poison, which he procured from Salerno, in the food or beverage of the
Grand Ducal couple.

Silvio made several attempts to accomplish his commission, but the Grand
Duke and Grand Duchess did not touch the dishes--specially treated as
they passed from the kitchen to the